w przekładzie Piotra Bukowskiego

Les splendeurs et les ombres de la “culture de traduction”
On parle ici non pas d’une culture de traduire, mais d’une telle culture littéraire qui
devait son origine et ses qualités au fait que les traductions littéraires étaient pratiquées,
qu’on traduisait d’une langue à une autre les ouevres littéraires écrites et qu’on les
traduisait à l’écrit. Or, telle était dans l’Antiquité la seule culture littéraire latine qui,
depuis la moitié du IIIe siècle avant J.-C., se composait en grande partie des traductions
du grec. Celles-ci pourtant n’étaient pas ce que sont les traductions d’aujourd’hui. En
traduisant en latin les ouevres grecques, on les transformait plus ou moins, en en faisant
des ouevres nouvelles: on en faisait les traductions qui étaient en même temps les imitations
et les émulations propres. Rien de tel genre n’était connu dans la littérature antique
grecque. Les Grecs qui se contentaient d’imiter leur écrivains d’antan, Homère en
premier lieu, ne faisaient les traductions des autres langues ni dans l’Antiquité, ni même
à l’ époque byzantine. La traduction de la Bible hébraïque au IIIe siècle avant J.-C. devait
son origine non pas aux Grecs, mais aux Juïfs de la Diaspore qui ne comprenaient
plus leur langue maternelle. Pour l’Occident latin, au contraire, la pratique littéraire des les siècles de la Renaissance jusqu’à l’époque moderne le paradigme antique romain
de la traduction-imitation-émulation régnait non seulement dans les écrits latins de ces
époques, mais aussi dans ceux composés en langues vernaculaires. Les écrivains de la
Renaissance, latins et vernaculaires, y étaient extrêmement diligents, en traduisant les
oeuvres des auteurs anciens grecs en latin et leurs oeuvres et à la fois les oeuvres des
auteurs latins en langues vernaculaires. De même que les écrivains latins antiques, ils
pratiquaient eux aussi les taductions-imitations-émulations.
C’est en analysant, sous l’aspect de cette caractéristique générale, quelques
exemples de la pratique des traducteurs romains – de Live-Andronique et de Catulle
poètes, de Cicéron, traducteur à la fois de la poésie et de la prose grecques et en même
temps théoricien de la traduction – que l’auteur de l’article essaye de caractériser les
splendeurs et les ombres de ce qu’il appelle la culture de traduction.

La critique de traduction dans l’ancienne Rome illustrée
par un exemple d’Aulu-Gelle (Les Nuits Attiques)
C’est aux Grecs que nous devons beaucoup d’aspects de la culture occidentale, mais
ce sont les Romains qui ont fait les premiers pas dans le domaine de la traduction. Cet
article présente un choix de traits caractéristiques de la manière qu’avaient les anciens
de traduire et notamment leur large défi nition de la traduction illustrée par un exemple
tiré d’Aulu-Gelle, écrivain Romain du deuxième siècle après Jésus-Christ.

Eros with patina. Translating erotica in ancient comedy
Using Plautus’ comedies as an example, the article shows how the translation of erotica
varied depending on the dominant habits and customs of a given period. It underlines
two opposite trends: one allows an ever-growing license to invoke fantasy; the second
inhibits the texts to be too graphic and vulgar (especially when it comes to the choice
of language). If an erotic pun of the original invokes only sexual associations and allusions,
translators often feel obliged to be bold in their version of the text. But there
can be no consent about the use of vulgar language. On the one hand, translators are
hindered by the conviction that the heroes of ancient plays should not speak a language
that looks too modern. On the other hand, dictionaries offer an almost biblical (or just
archaic) vocabulary when it comes to the obscene. In effect erotica usually tend to
sound older, more archaic, than the rest of the text.

For a solder rod. The archeology of interpreting
This paper, based on research conducted by the pioneers of the history of interpreting
(A. Hermann, I. Kurz) in the 1950s and on modern archeological evidence, presents the
earliest references to interpreters in the Bronze Age, in the Near East and the Mediterranean
area (Mesopotamy, Egypt, Crete, Cartagina). It discusses a Summerian Early
Dynastic List, a summerian-eblaic glossary from Ebla, the Shu-ilishu’s Cylinder Seal,
the inscriptions and reliefs from the Tombs of the Princes of Elephantine and of Haremhab,
the mention of a 1/3 mina of tin dispensed at Ugarit to the interpreter of Minoan
merchants and the Hannon’s stela, as well as terms used by these early civilizations to
denote an interpreter: „eme-bal”, „targumannu”, „jmy-r(A) aw”, „mls”.

Le traduzioni italiane in Polonia dal Cinquecento al Settecento
in prospettiva comparata
La problematica delle traduzioni letterarie implica il tema della migrazione dei generi
letterari tra diverse letterature. Il sonetto, genere nato in Sicilia a metà del XIII secolo
ebbe una larga fortuna in Europa. Le traduzioni dei poeti italiani, e prima di tutto del
Petrarca, contribuirono alla formazione delle numerose varianti del sonetto presso diverse letterature europee. L’articolo traccia una breve storia del sonetto in Polonia tra
il’500 e l’inizio dell’800 in confronto con la presenza dei vari sonetti italiani. Vengono
analizzate le strategie assunte da traduttori che spesso – soprattutto tra il’500 e il’600 –
erano anche grandi poeti e queste scelte sono messe a confronto con le poesie originali
degli stessi e di altri autori. Tutto ciò con l’obiettivo di indagare sulla coscienza genologica
di allora e di individuare certe costanti nell’approccio alla letteratura straniera
e in seguito anche di tracciare la posizione della letteratura tradotta sulla mappa del
polisistema letterario polacco dell’epoca.

Maria Sułkowska and her translation of Shakespeare’s Sonnets
The article presents the fi rst almost complete edition of Shakespeare’s sonnets in Polish,
which appeared in 1913 and has since been forgotten. The translator, Maria Sułkowska,
chose to appear under the pseudonym Mus. She omitted sonnets 134 and 135 as untranslatable
puns, and wrote a preface in verse where she expounded her views on
Shakespeare’s Sonnets and their translation. Her version is shown in the light of a highly
critical 1914 review and in the context of the fi rst Polish monograph on Shakespeare’s
poetry by Roman Dyboski (1914), who quoted Sułkowska’s translation throughout,
although with a few alterations of his own. Even though some of the sonnets must be
a challenge to the Polish reader because of the choice of obsolete vocabulary or syntax,
the whole merits attention due to the consistency of the translator’s decisions as well as
her attention to detail.

On Danuta Borchardt’s translations and ten commandments
for translators of Cyprian Norwid
The awareness that each translator should know their author thoroughly is particularly
essential to translators of C.K. Norwid, a profoundly demanding and diffi cult nineteenth-
century Polish poet. Hence, cooperation between translators and Norwid scholars
is highly desirable. The article describes one such cooperation, undertaken in 2006
by Danuta Borchardt (a translator) and Agata Brajerska-Mazur (a norwidologist). It
focuses on diffi culties posed by particular texts and describes successes and failures
of translation, drawing on Borchardt’s Cyprian Norwid. Selected Poems, forthcoming
from Archipelago Books (USA) in 2011.

On translating Stevens (and more)
One of the major themes of Wallace Stevens’s poetry is untranslatability. Morever, his
work thrives on ambiguity which can never be resolved. Therefore, translating this
poetry becomes an inspiring challenge: Stevens’s translators need to respect multifariousness
and openness; they need to distrust closure. The fact that Polish reception of the
American poet is almost non-existent (apart from versions by J.M. Rymkiewicz, who
feels affi nity with the ‘classical’ Stevens, and by Cz. Miłosz) makes the task for Polish
translators even more demanding. However, the changes in the Polish poetry of the
last two decades – both when it comes to poetic language and poetry reception – may
assist Stevens’s translators in Poland. Especially promising looks poetic paraphrase
(Ezra Pound’s favourite mode of translation), as practised by Dariusz Foks, Andrzej
Sosnowski and Tadeusz Pióro.

An idiom of translation in the grammar of modernity
In pursuing Pound’s ideology on translation and adaptation, my paper suggests that the appeal of interpreting translation through a framework of cultural symbology lies, to a great extent, in the power and appeal of the narrative of modernity. Whether we argue that Pound’s art of translation can be explained historically or we take Pound’s aesthetics as infused mainly with ideogram devotion to order and authority, we invariably assume the identity between his idiom of translation and the grammar of modernity. My paper is exploring aspects of Pound’s logic binding translation and imitation, which I take to be a mode of fashioning, with own poetic mould. This logic is that of semblance and appropriation, which dictates that his newly found idiom bridges the division between verbal and non-verbal, between language and the given or phenomenal. 

Translating Belarusian poetry into English: Vera Rich
The paper discusses the work of Vera Rich, a prominent translator and populariser of
Belarusian poetry in the English-speaking world. While the emphasis is mainly on
the analysis of her major published translations from Belarusian, her original poetry
and journalistic writings are also taken into consideration in order to demonstrate the
development of her poetic techniques to show her intereset in the current matters of
Belarus. In addition, this essay contains short biographical data and includes quotations
from Rich’s writings on her translations. This is done in order to give a more thorough
representation of the translator’s strategies and illustrate the causes for her choice of
particular material for translation as to outline her individual poetic perferences which
infl uence her translation process.

Almost absent literature:
Polish translations of contemporary Arabic novels
The article discusses translation of contemporary Arabic novels into Polish, from
1982 (when the fi rst versions were published) to the present day (2009). Over these
years eighteen contemporary Arabic novels, mostly by Egyptian authors, have been
rendered into Polish. The study presents statistical data that illustrates the scrarcity
of Arabic novels published in Polish by comparison with other languages. Moreover,
each of the discussed novels is presented briefl y, highlighting differences between the
novels’ original titles and their translations. Appended is the full chronological list of
the translations.
Publikacja

Looking back at the boom. On the `Latin-American Prose’ series
The article analyses the Polish boom of Latin American literature that deeply affected
the consciousness and sensitivity of writers who made their debut in 1980s and 1990s,
as well as their readers. Drawing on Polish papers and magazines from 1945–1970,
the article reconstructs the readers’ awareness of Latin American literature before the
boom; it also traces the sources available. The presence of Latin American writers on
the Polish book market of that time is also studied. The article focuses on the series
‘Latin-American Prose’ (‘Proza Iberoamerykańska’), presenting the goals of its editors,
the translators involved and its reception. The most characteristic titles published in the
series are discussed and their afterwords are commented upon.

Remarks on the most recent translation of T.S. Eliot’s poetry
In this review of Adam Pomorski’s translation of Eliot’s poetry into Polish, the author
endeavours to show the translator’s achievement in correcting the rather over-spiritualised
understanding of this poetry that has developed in Poland as a result of earlier
translators’ work. Pomorski, in contrast with his predecessors, lays emphasis on the
‘physical’, rather than the ‘metaphysical’ elements in Eliot’s poetry. His translatory
choices, while excellently suited to such poems as Mr Eliot’s Sunday Morning Service
or The Hippopotamus, tend, however, to fl atten out references to the spiritual, giving an
‘over-physicalised’ impression of the poet’s oeuvre as a whole. This translation does not
entirely do justice to the subtle balance of the physical and the metaphysical in Eliot’s
poetry; nor does it bring out the unifying element of ‘auto-allusion’. Pomorski thus by
implication opts for the view that sees Eliot’s later work not as a development of the
earlier but as a turning away from it. With few exceptions, the translator’s explanatory
notes are accurate and helpful to the Polish reader. When it comes to sensitivity to
rhyme and rhythm, Pomorski cannot be faulted. This is both a scholarly and a poetically
admirable addition to the corpus of available translations.